CASE STUDY: ACME Health Insurance
Alright my fellow sales nerdz. We’re continuing on our case study journey in today’s post and I’m excited to share one from my professional archives.
I worked on this deal several years ago and have seen elements from this process come up again and again over the years. There’s definitely some repeatable elements worth reviewing.
As we did last week, we’ll go step-by-step through the case study and note things of interest along the way.
And of course, names have been changed or omitted for privacy!
Let’s Goooooo…
RECENT ACME HEALTH
INSURANCE WIN!
An Analysis
As stated last week (but worth repeating), I like to start these case studies with a catchy and exciting headline that tempts my team to open it. When the top of the page is celebratory and exciting, it gets your team hyped and more likely to open (and actually READ) this document.
This is an in-depth 5-section analysis of how we recently upgraded an existing customer in the health insurance field. While there are always a ton of moving parts in every deal, my goal with this analysis is to spend a little extra time reflecting on processes that work (so we can repeat them in the future) and mistakes we made (to avoid those in the future).
When creating case analyses, don’t spend too long on any one section. Get to the point – your team has stuff to do!
SECTION ONE: Customer Details
Customer Name
ACME Health Insurance
Customer Description
ACME Mid-Tech is the largest health care insurer in the Mid-Atlantic region, serving 3.4 million members.
Customer’s Industry
Health Care
What was purchased?
Apigee “X” Standard
Deal Type
Upgrade
Section One is an easy-to-ingest overview. It’s meant to be read and understood in under 10 seconds. Nothing too in-depth here.
Next up, Section Two, which is a more detailed look at the before, during, and after of the whole sales journey. This information can easily be used to understand similar clients more quickly as they may have similar pain points. It’s useful in the future as a reference when working with other similar clients or the same client again.
Section Two: Use Case, Processes, and Win
The Use-Case
Issue to solve:
ACME Health Insurance was looking for an API management solution that met FedRAMP (Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program) compliance standards. A FedRamp compliance API management platform was required by some of ACME Health Insurance’s key providers by Jan 2022.
Customer Stated Apigee & API Use-Cases:
To have a comprehensive API Management program in place to be able to meet the unprecedented demand on payers to address members’ immediate needs and coordinate in real-time with providers.
Expanding the value and role that ACME Health Insurance’s API program plays in their go to market strategy by adding a monetization strategy to their API’s program strategic plan
Sales Process
Repeatable best practice: Partnering with the GCP team was a critical piece to driving towards a successful outcome, it created a foundational cadence with the customer. We also spent time educating on the FedRamp process from a business perspective and introduced the TOC program.
Shout outs to these folks at Apigee and GCP:
Person #1 - earned us a solid technical win early on and proved to be their trusted advisor
Person #2 - CE - education and time spent with the customer was a critical path towards getting them to move forward. This person was their trusted advisor and their efforts paid off.
Person #3 - GCP FSR - we worked extremely well together and triangulated with multiple contacts to execute a successful outcome.
Person #4 - Deal Desk - provided me with several flexible commercial models until we were able to land one that resonated with the customer.
Partner involvement: N/A
What other Google teams helped? Deal Desk was instrumental in making this happen.
The Win
Why Apigee?
Through some education, we were able to meet the FedRamp requirement. Also spent time as a business advisor and shone light on what needed to happen for success. We pursued a steady cadence (not rushed) to flush out all the nuances of the deal.
Our competition: Axway
How we beat the competition: We built technical trust, educated the customer on new FedRamp requirements, and put together a whole solution that included onboarding needs.
Who we replaced: For this specific deal, we didn’t replace anyone, but the customer is running $2 billion of APIs on Axway. We indenture this as a solution we can replace and possibly amend the deal to make it larger.
KPIs to measure success? The revenue that the customer will receive from onboarding onto the FedRamp approved platform
The buyer: Jamie Doe, CSO
The platform owner: Johnson Doe
Opportunities for expansion
Consolidating the APIs in the Axway platform to our platform.
Including specific people in this section is key. Section Two is perfect for personal shout-outs and listing important contact on the client side who helped push the deal through. They could be important future contacts as well!
Next we have even MORE in-depth options. So in-depth that they’re attached separately. Finally getting into the stuff for the real nerds (like us).
Section Three: Sales Proposal Analysis
After understanding the needs of the customer we also painted a vision for the future.
We included monetization into the proposal and structured the pricing to make it feasible for them to own both platforms .
We also leveraged additional programs and gave them almost $500k in programs and packages that gave us tremendous leverage to get this deal done on time. An example of what that looks like can be found in a follow up email (quoted below) to the customer around timing. While this is just a small sample of everything that needs to get done, it’s a view into another step in the campaign that can be added to a future swipe file.
ENTIRE EMAIL INSERTED HERE
A brief look to see details related to exactly how the deal played out. The included email can work as a great reference for future difficult points with clients. If it was good enough to push a deal through before, why not use parts of it in the future to do so again?
Nearly to the end now…we have an additional asset (again, for us nerdz) and an even shorter list of future to-dos.
Section Four: Path 2 Partnership Analysis
The P2P is always helpful with timing. It reduces risk and provides clarity around timing for the customer.
Keeping it short and sweet towards the end is key. People don’t want to read a lot, remember, but it is necessary to keep pertinent information easily to reference for future projects.
I’ve only made a tiny observation about the P2P analysis, but it’s something that is often skipped over in the regular sales process so I want to make sure my team understands it.
Then FINALLY, we hope to Section Five, with some final thoughts and things I want to emphasize. Again, I list out things done differently than before, and subtly hint how much I bring to the team. Go me! :D #ainttooproudtoBRAG
SECTION FIVE: OBSERVATIONS & TAKE-AWAYS
Leveraging programs helps to close new business.
Strategizing with deals early on in the sales cycle helps tremendously.
Having a larger vision in the account helps to identify smaller opportunities to pick off—we’re still going after the Axway takeout in 2022.
Bringing procurement in early in the process and using the programs as leverage helped to hold the customer to a specific date [AKA when the customer is going to lose something, they tend to want to work a little harder to keep it]
Identify all the stakeholders involved in getting the deal done and have a discussion with them.
Leverage the mobilizer.
Programs and incentives can be used to help provide leverage around timing.
Then I wrap this whole thing up with a simple conclusion paragraph and an invitation for future conversations. I am eager to learn more, happy to hear other ideas, and excited for the future.
CONCLUSION
I wanted to focus this analysis on a customer where there was a larger deal available, but we ended up with the low hanging fruit. Hopefully this example of proposal, P2P and additional context helps you in your next deal.
So what about you? What are your thoughts for next time? How do you review old client deals to make the most of what you’ve learned? Comment below, I want to know!
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This week we’re hopping back in time to share something we’ve posted before that goes especially well with our current topic of Case Studies. Take a look at this post from the archives!